A/N: Sorry for the wait, thanks for being patient with me!

Chapter 3

I can't believe he doesn't remember either, Sora thought as she walked back into her apartment/dorm room.

"Had a little too much to drink last night?" May asked bluntly.

"Perhaps." Leon answered thoughtfully. "Honestly I don't even remember getting home last night."

Their earlier conversation replayed itself in her mind. The sense of dread she'd been feeling regarding a confrontation eased slightly at the thought. Maybe, she thought, I won't have to say anything; it'll be like nothing ever happened. This thought caused her to think off all of those movies she'd seen where secrets were kept between people and that ultimately caused more harm than actually telling the truth would have, but considering that she didn't even know what the truth was, she just let it slide for now.

Sora carried her shopping bags into her room and began to sort thought her purchases. She'd bought a few pairs of jeans, some Bermuda shorts and tank tops of various colors, some new sandals and a midnight blue knee length dress with thin straps to hold it up, she thought it was very pretty and on sale so why not.

"That's pretty." Fool said as Sora held up the dress.

"I thought so too." Sora smiled. "I even bought matching shoes."

"You have a date or something?" Fool asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

"No!" Sora said laughing. "It was on sale."

"Well I suppose even stars have the urge to splurge every now and then." He waved a hand in the air as he spoke

A thought occurred to Sora. "I don't even have anywhere to wear it." She was a little discouraged. "Oh well," she brightened up, "I'll have it in case something comes up!" She hung it in the closet along with her other clothes.

The next two weeks passed without incident. The cast decided to perform the Phantom of the Opera with Leon starring as the phantom and Sora as Christine. They spent those two weeks practicing and working out the kinks of their routine. They also put a twist to the plot, (this is for all you phantom fans) where Christine agrees to run away with the phantom.

At the moment, Sora and Leon were practicing the duet scene, but instead of singing, they were dancing. The phantom had brought Christine down to his home beneath the opera house. Sora and Leon swung away from each other on the trapeze; anguish lined their moves as they played the parts of Christine and the phantom, lovers who could never be. Sora swung she up to stand on her trapeze as Leon mirrored her movements.

They swung back towards each other, as her swing reached its apex, Sora leapt over Leon, between the ropes holding his swing. Somersaulting and landing on her toes in a ballet pose on the next swing, her training from the angel's maneuver years earlier still present in her movements. Leon looked after her with longing in his eyes and movements. He swung back in her direction. She leapt yet again just out of his reach. A teasing grin on her face, "come and get me" it seemed to say. He dropped so he was hanging from the bar and when he reached his top speed, he let go, doing a full layout and then catching the swing just after Sora left it.

Seeing that she had gone yet again, he decided he'd had enough of playing games. He swung again, this time spinning as he flew; Sora tried to jump over him, only to be caught in the air and brought back to the trapeze with him. There they stood, chest to chest, balancing precariously on a single swing.

The feeling of Leon's arms around her was very familiar to Sora. Of course it would be familiar considering the amount of times they've held each other in the countless practices and performances, but this time it was different. Sora's cheeks turned red.

Leon felt Sora's warmth as he held her against his body, almost as if to protect her from the world, she was his. He looked down at her and saw her staring back. He thought he would lose himself in her big brown eyes. He felt warmth spreading in his body.

She felt her heart rate quickened. He held her tighter. She half closed her eyes. He felt himself being drawn to her. He began to lean in, their faces only inches apart and getting closer and closer until-

"Cut!" Cathy yelled from her place at the edge of the stage. Sora and Leon quickly pulled apart, though they couldn't separate far due to the fact that they were still standing on a trapeze. It was almost as if they were shaken from a trance.

What was that? Sora thought to herself, her cheeks turning an even deeper shade of red. I think we almost~! She forgot where they were for a moment. She looked away from Leon, suddenly remembering that she had been trying to act as normal as possible since the forgotten incident the night of the party. She knew from the seeing him nearly every day that he remembered nothing, but that didn't stop the fact that something might have happened that night that might have jeopardized everything. She didn't want to lose him over something like a moment of indiscretion. She was scared of what may have happened.

I can't believe I almost-! Leon thought to himself. He lost sight of everything but her, even the fact that they were practicing for a performance, the fact that they were not alone. For a moment, he forgot that he was acting, that they were partners and nothing more, that she was his friend. He was willing to risk that in that moment. All he wanted in that moment... was her.

"That was great!" Cathy called up. "You guys showed great emotion up there, for a minute I actually thought you guys were lovers!" She cried excitedly, Sora blushed; Leon wore his usual poker face. "You were the Phantom and Christine!" Cathy then proceeded to tell them how their acting has come a long way over the years and what a superb job they were doing.

"T-thank you." Sora said modestly, she was grateful to get such praise from someone like Cathy. The trapeze were lowered, Sora gracefully jumped off, feeling a rush of cold air where Leon's body had been. She heard Leon land softly near her, she seemed to be overly aware of him ever since that night. She hated not knowing what happened.

"Leon!" One of the girls from wardrobe called to him. She was tall and had red hair and green eyes, she was quite pretty actually. "Can you come here? We need to make some adjustments on your costume." Sora felt a little pang in her chest, she didn't like the feeling.

"Okay." He said and followed her backstage. Sora hadn't seen his costume yet and hers was still being designed. Cathy had said something about wanting to wait until opening night to reveal the costumes. Opening night was only two weeks away, so they had a little bit of time. Sora looked into the dark edge of the stage where her silver-haired partner disappeared.

"Sora," Mia called. "I want you to come and see this." She said, indicating the tape of the rehearsal.

"Coming." Sora said as she reluctantly turned away from the direction of her partner.

May balanced on one foot on the tightrope, concentrating completely on her footing. She slowly lifted one leg until her shin was right near her cheek. She quickly swung her leg back down and up, using the velocity to launch herself into a backwards layout, landing again on her toes and then quickly launched into another layout with a full twist, landing on the toes of her right foot, holding a pose almost like the one Sora used during the angel's maneuver.

May slowly bent forward and touched her toes, bringing her left leg up straight into the air doing a type of split. She brought her right leg up, supporting herself on her hands and standing pencil straight. She spread her legs into a sideways/Russian split, bringing her feet down to touch the rope on both sides of her. She straightened up, bending forward and placing both hands on the rope again, keeping one foot on the rope and stretching the other one behind her, leaning forward so her legs were diagonal from the rope, sweat dripped from her face.

May sometimes enjoyed feeling a little bit of a strain on her muscles, it was a sign that her hard work was slowly paying off. Eyes closed, May lifted her other foot so she was standing on her hands again.

She heard the door click shut and opened slowly lowered her legs so she was standing upright again and opened her eyes. She looked down to see a head of sandy blonde hair and a set of sparkling blue eyes looking up to her, in his hand was a take-out bag from her favorite restaurant.

"I brought lunch." Ken said when he knew she saw him. He would have called up but didn't want to startle May. The last thing he wanted was for her to fall. She smiled down to him and walked along the rope to the platform at the end.

May had calmed down considerably over the years; she still tended to get overly excited over some things but was slightly quieter about it. Sure she still shouted out her moves during practices and all, but that just made May herself, his May.

She dropped from the ladder and walked over to Ken, eagerly taking the bag from his hands. "Oh!" She was giddy. Ken had brought her favorite Mexican food, since we all know May likes her food spicy.

"Thought you might be hungry." Ken said. "You've been at it for hours!" He laughed a little. May glared, thinking he was laughing at her. Ken brought his hands up in a sign of peace/surrender/please-don't-hurt-me.

"Thanks, Ken." May said sweetly, pecking him on the cheek as they sat down on the floor of the practice room and had a make-shift picnic.

Leon stood in his, very organized, dressing room, eying the costume he was to wear for the next performance, a little skeptical about it. He decided not to worry over it too much, the costume was nice enough, but something didn't quite seem right about it, maybe it was the fact that the girls wanted him to wear something with a bit more color than usual, but they seemed to lose the Phantom in the process. He would fix it later. Leon turned to face the mirror. His silver-violet eyes stared back.

What happened earlier? He thought to himself. He remembered the feeling of Sora in his arms, how it was so familiar, but different somehow. He couldn't say why but something seemed strange, but not in a bad way. He also remembered the coldness from when they separated. He furrowed his brow and stared at his eyes reflected back. He was going mad!

"Nice work out there today." A voice said from behind him. Leon turned to face the direction of the voice. He looked to the shelf where he kept various books and photos and other miscellaneous things and sitting right at the top was a six inch tall specter of a man. The spirit of the stage stared back.

"Hello, Fool." Leon said indifferently, like finding a spirit in your dressing room was just an everyday occurrence, but for certain stars of the Kaleido Stage, it was.

"So, how's Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Gloomy today?"

Leon glared at the spirit.

"Ah, the usual I see." Fool liked to joke with Leon, even if Leon didn't joke back, and Fool knew better than to expect him to. "And might I say your acting was marvelous today." Fool wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Leon was just short of throwing the nearest object, which happened to be a coffee mug, at the spirit.

"What have you come here for?" Leon asked icily.

"Oh just to have a chat." Fool replied. "I've got to keep my tabs on the stars, I am the spirit of this stage after all and as you know, only a few can see me."

"I suppose." Leon said.

Sora later walked out of her dressing room and nearly ran into Mr. "Grim Reaper" of the stage himself.

"Hello Leon." She said after regaining some composure.

"Hello." He said.

"Are you going home?" Sora asked, trying to make small talk with her partner. Though they've been partners for years, she still got nervous around him.

"Yes, and yourself?" Leon asked. He'd begun speaking more over the years also, he wasn't as cold anymore but calling Leon a warm person was like calling a porcupine a teddy bear.

"Yes." Sora answered quickly. "But I wanted to go for a walk on the beach first." She added. "The weather is gorgeous outside!" She beamed.

Leon couldn't help but smirk a little at her excitement. "I suppose it is."

"Would you like to join me?" The words flew out before Sora had a chance to stop them. She nervously waited for him to reject her offer.

"I don't really have anything planned for this afternoon," he began. "So why not." He said, much to Sora's surprise. "Shall we?" He said holding out his arm like the gentleman he was.

"Thank you my good sir." Sora laughed as she linked her arms through his, their conversations becoming more natural. They walked side by side into the lobby area of the building and noticed a little commotion going on.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but the performers are busy at the moment, you'll need to come back later." The security guard was saying to a tall, very beautiful woman with waist length platinum blonde hair and bright green eyes. Her eyebrows were furrowed in distress. She wore a simple white sundress but she managed to make it look both elegant and casual at the same time along with her four-inch stilettos. Sora felt a pang of envy. The woman was gorgeous.

"Excuse moi?" The woman said, it sounded like she spoke French.

"Is something the matter?" Sora asked, stepping forward in case she could help. Leon stayed planted where he was, ignoring the altercation.

"I've got this under control." The young guard said, trying to save face. Leon looked to the young man and suddenly froze confusion in his expression; Sora thought it was strange to see Leon confused.

The young woman turned confused in Sora's direction and Sora instantly recognized her. She was the woman who Mia was giving directions to that day the met up for lunch.

"Leon." Sora said. "I think you'd better handle this, she only speaks French." She said, remembering how May couldn't communicate with her. Her sentence was met with silence. "Leon?" Sora turned.

The French girl froze in her tracks after hearing Sora speak. She slowly turned and her eyes landed on Leon. "Leon?"

Sora turned, confused as to why the girl would know Leon. Then she heard him speak.

"Annette?"